Fire Leaves Yuba City Women's Shelter Scrambling For Solutions
YUBA CITY (CBS13) — A fire in a Yuba City women's shelter left 20 women and children homeless earlier this month. Now, things finally taking a turn for the better at the Casa de Esperanza shelter.
"What we're hoping is that we've found some more permanent temporary digs," said Krouse-Taylor. "It looks like someone is stepping up. We will know tomorrow for sure. We'll wait and see."
It's been a year since Randip Kaur left the shelter with her two children.
"I play monkey bars everyday," said 6-year-old Sukhpreet Kaur
A normal response from a kindergartner. But Kaur and her mother didn't always have a normal life.
"There was so much fighting in her house and she was being abused by her husband," Kaur said through translator, Navneet Randhawa.
Kaur said her Indian community was unwilling to help her in her time of need. But everything changed when she went to Casa de Esperanza- and met her translator Navneet Randhawa.
"I was so happy there was someone else who speak my own language," she said.
She spent 8 months at Casa de Esperanza. There, she felt there were no more barriers to communicating her needs. And nothing in way of creating a better life for her children. So when she heard about the fire, the first thing that ran through her mind was how she could help.
"I was shocked and I was like crying" Kaur said. "Why would this happen?"
"They're very resilient, very courageous, but it's been weighing heavy on all of us," said Marsha Krouse-Taylor, the shelter's executive director.
She and counselor Deborah Lineker-Lee have been racing against the clock to find a new location for the shelter.
"These women won't be out on the streets," Lineker-Lee said. "No matter what, they're sheltered."
And while the temporary housing for the women runs out on May 3, there may be something new on the horizon for the shelter.
Suhkpreet is teaching her mother English and though she is still learning, she knows one word to describe how she feels about Casa de Esperanza.
"Beautiful," she said.
